In late 2008, together with some friends I’ve known forever, I cofounded GrandCentrix.

Within just two years, we’ve grown to one of the largest, iOS and Android focused mobile apps developers in Germany, servicing major brands. With publ.me, we’ve created a revolutionary iPad publishing platform, that not only coined the term “iPad publishing made easy” – hence the “me” in publ.me – but is also used by market leading companies across the globe.

In fact, a comparison conducted by renowned management consultancy Arthur D. Little found publ.me to be the most comprehensive, affordable and easy to use offering in this market.

I’m in this game for quite a while and do understand, that success fosters envy.

Still, I was somewhat surprised this morning, to find voice application professional Excelsis Business Solutions AG – who has just recently jumped on the app development bandwagon – to go online with what’s almost a 1:1 copy of the GrandCentrix corporate homepage.

Here’s the original GrandCentrix homepage, as it has been online since almost two years (click to enlarge):

And here is Excelsis Business Solutions’ shameless copy under the brand name apperplace:

Some say, if an established player (at least in the voice industry) is unable to come up with her own original ideas and starts copying yours, one should feel humbled.

So we brainstormed ideas from taking legal action to trying to get in touch.

We finally came up with an even better one: What makes for a better argument in customer presentations, talks and sales meetings, if you can prove a company that’s in business since 1998 feels tempted to bluntly copy your ideas, design, messaging and content?

We’ve started modifying our Keynote presentations and all of our sales collateral. We’ve added a brief intro, showcasing how desperate some of our competitors really are. And if they’re desperate, that’s usually a good sign!

Besides this, we still believe, if you’re serious about iPad publishing, you’ll likely not hand your business to a $99 construction kit company, anyway.

A former boss, who has founded one of the largest Internet companies on the planet, taught me to “lead, don’t follow”.

Today, Excelsis Business Solutions has proven being good at copying. We stay tuned.